“Of course he ain’t, doll. Use your head. Would I let someone like that into the building here?” He stopped a minute, sucking his cheeks in. “Trouble is, I don’t know what he might be doing. Long as I’ve known him, which is a long time now, Mitch’s always had some scheme or other going. And now he thinks he’s got a way to make Diamond Head put him back on the payroll.”

Mr. Contreras snorted. “I ask you! It isn’t even as if any of the guys we used to know was still there. They’re all retired or been kicked out or whatever. And between you and me, he wouldn’t have been kept on the last three years if we hadn’t had such a tight local. But nowadays? With the shape he’s in and guys half our age pounding the sidewalks looking for machine work? But he’s making a big old mystery out of it, so I thought of you. Where there’s a mystery, you like to be poking your nose into it.”

Something about the story didn’t ring quite true to me. I rubbed my eyes, hoping to bring life into my fuzzy brain.

“What is it you really want to know? Why do you care if Kruger’s panhandling out at Diamond Head?”

Mr. Contreras took out his giant red handkerchief and rubbed his nose. “Mitch and me grew up together down in McKinley Park. We went to school together, we ran with the same gang, fought the same guys, all that stuff. We even signed our apprenticeship papers the same day. He ain’t much, but he’s about all I got left from that time in my life. I don’t want to see him make a goddam fool of himself in front of the bosses. I’d like to know what he’s up to.”

He spoke in a fast, mumbly voice that I had to strain to hear, as if he were embarrassed to admit sentiment or affection for Kruger. I was touched by both his feelings and his awkwardness.

“I can’t promise you anything, but at least I can talk to him.”

Mr. Contreras blew his nose with a final flourish. “I knew I could count on you, doll.”

He’d left Mitch Kruger in the kitchen reading the Sun-Times, but when we got there the back door was open and his friend was nowhere in sight. A plate of fried eggs, cold grease glistening on them, sat in front of the newspaper. Kruger had apparently eaten a few bites before something made him decide to take a hike.

“He has got problems, hasn’t he?” I said affably.